Among the very nice field trips at the NARGS Annual meeting in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was a day at Chalk Mountain (Carbon County). This is a low, flat-topped mountain with friable limestones and sandstones. It was a pleasure to be introduced to the botanical delights of this mountain by our trip leader, Bonnie Heidel. You might ask why Chalk Mountain, at barely 8,000 feet (2400 m) elevation would be so interesting when there are so many mountains in the area that reach high into the alpine. Chalk mountain, as the name suggests, has limestone derived soils, which often produces a rich flora, sometimes including rare and local species adapted to the highly calcareous soils. These plants are of particular interest to me as my home garden is in an area of calcareous soils. There was another draw. Southern Michigan, where I live, has quite hot summers, so high elevation alpines are hard to manage. Though Chalk Mountain is much drier than southern Michigan, at least that is only one strike against us easterners thinking about growing some of these plants.
